The Demon in the Pastry Shop

21: Best Dressed

 "This will quicken your hand," Mavah placed a fountain pen in Kit's palm, "and it never runs out of ink."

She curtsied. He knew that was thank you by now (but it took him the whole week to learn).

Mavah turned back to the bed in the tower room (small, round and beautiful with the night sky painted all over it. It felt like the inside of an ornate lantern) where a small bounty of parting gifts were splayed out.

The king of the Hollow Realm visited the king of the Herblords (called the Curator; no relation to the Collector) and ran into his sister, Shasnah (the Ace of Luck). She told him that an Awakened Idol was soon to storm his island and he must send Kit away to keep his realm safe. Mavah apologized for turning Kit out and insisted on loading her up with gifts that might help her evade capture and run away before she left.

"This sack won't hold everything, but it will always hold much more than it should and never add the weight," Mavah pointed out a pouch with a string that tied around the wrist, then adding to her as she turned its leather over in her hands, "it will fit all of the contents of your old bag with room to spare. Traveling light is best."

Kit nodded and curtsied again. She worked to tie the cinch-bag string around her wrist while he introduced the other wares.

"Shasnah gifted you this one, actually," he said, pointing to a flask, "when you fill this up, with whatever liquid, when you get to the bottom, there will always be a little more left. It will never be completely empty."

Vaness would fill it up with liquor immediately. Kit smiled thinking about that. She might never see Vaness or Austeya or Glin again. She frowned.

"And lastly, these shoes," he picked up a pair of wine-red loafers and almost instantly lost his tongue as he presented them to her.

She circled her fingers around each other to encourage him on.

Mavah nodded and cleared his throat, "yes, well. You should know that these have been... resized and... repurposed. They are shoes that will do the running or the walking for you, when you're tired. But yes, you should know that they can be... a little domineering because of their past and so I would recommend you wear them only when you really need to."

Kit scribbled out on her notepad, "I understand."

"Good," he sighed with relief as he handed them over to her. He brushed off his sweater-vest and reminded her, "the Hollow Realm used to deal in textiles when Sofian was still alive, but since his passing, we've stopped with the trade, so if you'd like something less tedious to travel in, you'll have to pick from the old queen's closet again. Your other dress is drying as we speak and you can take it with you when you go, of course. It will be purrfectly clean."

Kit rolled her eyes. Mavah was serious but he also was not. 

She took her time to thank him for his hospitality and then she was on her way to the old queen's chambers, abandoned in her absence. The dress she wore today was from that queen's possessions, but Mavah was right in that it wasn't a good one to run away with. Too many skirt layers made of too thin fabric. She would take another dress from Queen Lunastasia's wardrobe if only to have something to change into when she washed her own dress.

As she expected, however, Queen Lunastasia was not the type to keep around plain dresses. After all, she was a queen. Kit couldn't blame her. If she was a queen, she would wear the fanciest, flounciest gowns everyday too.

The best candidate Kit could find was an emerald green, sequined dress with no sleeves and a v-neck that said promising date-night rather than running for your life, but beggars couldn't be choosers. When Kit put it on, she groaned at the slit she hadn't noticed that went up to her thigh, but couldn't be bothered to find something else and it looked good on her. It looked spectacular. It's just that she wasn't as focused on looking good as she was on imagining herself running away from Silus again.

Then she paused. She put her hand on her hip in contemplation.

Maybe she should be thinking about looking good. She didn't think that she could flirt her way out of capture, but if she was in a tight situation, it wouldn't be a bad tactic to appeal to his slight affinity toward her (if she was reading him correctly). The thought brought Kit to the old queen's mirror.

She took some time -only a little- to do her makeup and hair like she would for work or to see friends. Queen Lunastasia's powder products didn't match her skin tone at all, but there was some red lipstick and some rouge. Kit applied them until she was satisfied with the pop of color accentuating her features in the mirror. The red was a rather striking complement to the green dress.

Good. Silus was probably not expecting her to look drop-dead gorgeous on the run and maybe if the Ace of Luck truly was on her side, that might lend her some advantage.

Kit raided the pantry for food to carry with her in her little pouch that carried more than it should. She filled the flask with water (and longingly peered back at the aged whiskey hiding on the top shelf). She grabbed blank parchment from the library (and wondered why the Hollow Realm still used parchment instead of regular paper) and folded them into her bag. She practiced retrieving everything she put in the bag and after an hour, figured out the trick of it.

Then her clothes were dry and the pleasant little pumpkin gnome named Winswicker the Second handed them off to her.

As ready as she could ever be, Kit said her goodbyes to Mavah and set out from the castle to wander the In-Between, praying to the Feline Goddess that Jude was safe.